Kolkata's Cult of Durga: Report #1

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I've never sweated as much as I did today at Kumartuli!!! Well, maybe I did...but let me put it this way, it's been a while since I did.

The area or neighborhood is a traditional potters’ quarter in northern Kolkata, which is abuzz with workers applying the finishing touches on the variety of clay idols of Hindu gods and goddesses that are to be placed in the pandals for the Durga Puja in a few days' time.

We were met by Chhandak Pradhan, who's assisting me during the workshop, at Kumartuli, and spent over two hours photographing the lading of the finished idols unto the trucks, the artists applying paint on the unfinished clay statues, and even the fashioning of the straw armature on which the clay is applied...and yet, all the clay idols have to be delivered by tomorrow!

The objective of the workshop is to produce a a multi-part multimedia documentary on the Durga Puja festival as it occurs in Kolkata; the preparation of the clay idols, the flurry of shopping, the transportation of the idols to the pandals, the rituals and the processions to the river for the idols' final immersion in the river. I shall be working in black & white...but it's up to the rest of the participants whether to do the same or work in color.

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Khari Baoli: Delhi's Spice Market

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

One of my favorite places in Old Delhi for street photography is in its spice wholesale market located just off Khari Baoli street. The smell of the various spices is overpowering, and I spent a few moments sneezing and coughing, much to the amusement of the onlookers. The market has been operating (probably unchanged to a large extent) since the 17th century, and can be accessed by walking to Fatehpuri Masjid on Chandni Chowk, and turning left.

It seems there had been a murder of a jewelry storekeeper a few days before on Chandni Chowk, so a handful of merchants of electronics and other stuff were shuttered in protest. The police was out in force with barricades, but outnumbered the protestors.

I recorded some ambient sound from the spice market, which is punctuated with spitting, coughing and hawking by the porters...this will add considerable authenticity should I decide to produce a multimedia piece on the spice market.

The Leica M9 functioned flawlessly...and eagerly jumped to action in its first view of India. Its baptism of fire seems to have been successful. It unobtrusiveness allowed me to remain unnoticed for a while, but of course, India is India...and someone will notice you and eventually engage you in some banter.

By the way, this photograph is the in-camera jpeg version of the larger DNG. I haven't processed it at all, except for a minute touch of sharpening.

In Focus: Hindu Festivals

Photo © Dibyangshu Sarkar—AFP/Getty Images

Photo © Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri

Photo © AP Photo/Manish Swarup

What an incredible but timely coincidence!

In Focus, the photo blog of The Atlantic, has just featured 39 photographs of Hindu festivals...and yes, you guessed it, 3 of those are of the preparations for the Durga Puja in Kolkata.

I am traveling this evening from London to Delhi, where I'll spend a couple of nights, then on to Kolkata to for my Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo Expedition/Workshop.

The expedition/workshop will involve a lot of street photography, and at its core is the Durga Puja festivities. We plan to document the festivities from the making of the clay idols and their delivery to the neighborhoods' pandals to their final immersion in the Hooghly river.

It appears that the weather for Kolkata might be intermittently rainy during the Durga Puja week, but I also expect we shall have glorious light quality when the rain stops.

Delhi Photo Festival: October 15-28, 2011

As I mentioned in earlier posts, Delhi Photo Festival is progressing steadily, and now includes an  array of workshops, lectures, portfolio reviews, gallery walks and seminars.

I am very pleased to be participating in the festival, where I will teach a short multimedia module on October 15 aimed at photographers and photojournalists to produce audio-slideshows that rivals in quality and content then the more elaborate multimedia productions.

On the morning of the same day, I will be reviewing portfolios of non-working photographers at the same venue, the Habitat Learning Centre.

The above image is the official poster for the 'Delhi Photo Festival'. Feel free to make copies and disseminate to photo enthusiasts as widely as you can.

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John Kenny: Kenyan Portraits

Photo © John Kenny-All Rights Reserved

The Guardian newspaper in London alerted me of an exhibition opening next week of John Kenny's new portraits from Kenya.

John Kenny started a journey in 2006 that took him though many of Sub-Saharan Africa’s remotest communities. He spent hours walking, hitch-hiking and driving across African countries making photographs of people, ancient cultures and traditions.

The Guardian and the exhibition venue (3 Bedfordbury Gallery) has a selected number of these portraits, but the collection can be best seen on John Kenny's website.

He tells us that the images were taken during his second trip to the far North of Kenya in 2011. With major drought across the Samburu, Rendille and Turkana villages in the region, he wanted to to convey a little more on how climate changes are undermining traditional pastoral ways of live in East Africa.

I have featured John Kenny's work a number of times. You can the posts see here and here.

Should I go and see the exhibit at the Covent Garden gallery whilst I'm in London, I'll post my impressions.

I just noticed that John Kenny used a 10x8 format Chamonix camera for some of his work.

New! Nikon's V1 Mirrorless Camera

As readers of this blog know well, I am a big fan and supporter of the interchangeable mirrorless cameras. I have the Panasonic Lumix GF1 that I just love and while it's a shame Panasonic decided to pimp it up so mindlessly with its new GF3 iteration, the fact remains that I believe this type of cameras will eventually be preferred by enthusiasts and professionals over bulky (and overly complex) DSLRs.

Nikon has just announced a new crop of such cameras, and the one that caught my attention is the Nikon V1.

The Nikon V1 is claimed to be the world’s smallest and lightest camera with interchangeable lenses and an electronic viewfinder. It ought to be in retail stores on October 20th with a 10-30mm lens for $900.

Nikon also released a collection of 4 news lenses (Nikkor 1 System) for its new cameras: the 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens, a 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6 (81-297mm equivalent) for $250, a 10mm f/2.8 (27mm equivalent) for $250, and a 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 (27-270mm equivalent) power zoom lens for $750.

Intelligently, Nikon also announced a FT-1 F-mount adaptor that will allow Nikon fans to use their SLR lenses. This indicates to me that Nikon predicts that many photographers will be encouraged to migrate (as back up or second body) to its new system since their investment in lenses will be preserved.

Good move, Nikon! Let's see what Canon (and perhaps even Leica) has in store.

POV: Gear For Kolkata

As i have not used my DSLRs for quite a while (well, since the Foundry Workshop in Buenos Aires in July), I decided to give them an airing today...a very brief one; just for a photograph to accompany this post.

For the Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo Expedition/Workshop, I am taking the Canon 5D Mark II, the Canon 7D, a 70-200 f2.8 (not shown), a 28-70 f2.8, a 17-40mm f4.0, a Marantz PMD620 recorder, a 28mm Leica Elmarit, a 40mm f1.4 Nokton Voigtlander (not shown), a Holga for Canon lens (not shown) and the Leica M9 (used to take the picture).

The workshop will involve a lot of street photography, especially during the Durga Puja festivities, and I intend to use the M9 for that...for the low-light situations or for those that require quick focusing, a Canon will be used. I have a couple of projects in mind in which I will try to use the Holga lens...these will involve environmental portraiture. Should it rain, the Leica will remain dry in the Domke bag.

That being said, everything depends on the 'facts of the ground' as politicians are prone to say.

Antonio Mari: Candomble

Photo © Antonio Mari-All Rights Reserved

Here's the work of Antonio Mari, US-Brazilian photographer living in both countries, and specializing in ethnophotography. His work appeared in the New York Times, The New York Post, Newsday, Gannett Newspapers, Asahi Shimbun (Japan), Veja Magazine (Brazil), Time Magazine, Science Magazine and the Boston Globe, as well as Geo Magazine (Germany).


I was drawn to his Bahia of All Saints (Candomble) gallery which depicts the practice of the Afro-Brazilian syncretism called Candomble in the Reconcavo Baiano region of the northeastern state of Bahia,Brazil. The images were made during an offering ceremony in a small village called Milagre San Roque.

Countdown To Kolkata

Just a few lines to start the countdown for my Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo Expedition/Workshop. In exactly a week from today, I'll be in Delhi enjoying the company of various friends, and looking at my first Leica images made in Delhi! I can't wait.

A couple of days later, I fly off to Kolkata to officially start the workshop.

I am currently in London until next Sunday, enjoying it as always despite having to wait till Tuesday for a BT technician to repair a fault in the internet connection. It's unreal how we've become accustomed to having the internet...it's almost like being accustomed (and expecting) electricity, heat, water...If I had to choose having television of internet, the latter would win hands down.

Charles W. Cushman: New York City

Photo © Charles W. Cushman

I don't know why The Daily Mail, as a British newspaper would feature an extensive gallery of New York City photographs made in the 1940s and later by Charles Weever Cushman, but it did and these show us how much (and how little) has changed in this wonderful city.

Charles Weever Cushman was an amateur photographer and Indiana University alumnus, who bequeathed approximately 14,500 Kodachrome color slides to his alma mater. The photographs in this collection bridge a thirty-two year span from 1938 to 1969.

Most of these places shown in the photographs have either been demolished or altered, except for one or two in the East Village. My favorite is the one above of Chinese store windows in Chinatown made on October 7, 1942.... I wonder where that is.

Which brings me to street photography. I read a day or two ago that Scott Strazzante got into trouble because some random guy took umbrage to his shooting from the hip, and shoved him. You can read of the incident here.  I also got some grief when an older fellow, whom I was photographing quite openly, hurled the vilest of epithets at me but he wasn't physical. You can read about it here.

The guy who shoved Scott said that photographing people from the hip was "intellectually unfair".  I don't know what he meant, except perhaps he thought that it wasn't really photography, and for it to be fair, people being photographed had to be aware that Scott (or I and other street photographers who shoot from the hip) were photographing them...otherwise it was a sort of surveillance photography.

Scott actually thinks that "shooting from the hip is kinda creepy".  I don't disagree (which isn't quite the same as saying that I agree) with this notion, but I would qualify it by saying that it depends who the subjects are.  For example, if provocatively dressed young women are being photographed
surreptitiously with a different intent than pure street photography, then it's creepy. Otherwise, shooting from the hip is no different than shooting candid portraits with a long lens.

Francisco "Kit" Reyes: Globetrotter Photographer

Photo © Francisco "Kit" Reyes-All Rights Reserved

I would not be exaggerating if I described Francisco "Kit" Reyes as a human National Geographic magazine. He's a videographer and photographer who's been to over 100 countries, and is thrilled to have made his passion into a career.

His resume includes working with Fox 5, CBS New York, CNBC, Channel News Asia, as well as being a freelancer videographer and photographer. If you glance at his field experience, it'll add up to the 100 countries he mentions in his biography.

Aside from his video work of Machu Picchu, Galapagos, Dubai, Brunei amongst other exotic places, Francisco has photo galleries of his work in Ladakh, Cuba, Egypt, West Africa, India, Penang, Kosovo, Borneo, Vietnam, Nepal, etc. His imagery is both documentary travel, NGO styled work, and commercial (resorts and hotels for example).

You'll spend quite a while viewing Francisco's portfolios...and you might agree with me that he's a human National Geographic.

Reminders Project Asian Photographers Grant

The five finalists of the inaugural Reminders Project Asian Photographers Grant were announced on September 12th.

These accomplished photographers were selected by a jury panel from submissions received from all over Asia, and will have their work showcased at this year’s 7th Angkor Photo Festival, which is held from November 19 to 26, 2011, in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

The winner of the grant will be announced during the festival, and will receive financial support of US$3,000 for his/her winning project. The project will also be shown next year at the 8th Angkor Photo Festival.

2011 FINALISTS
AGNES DHERBEYS
South Korea / France

ANDRI TAMBUNAN
Indonesia

GMB AKASH
Bangladesh

SHIHO FUKADA
Japan

ZISHAAN AKBAR LATIF
India

Yatin Patel: Sutra

I'm pleased to have been directed to Yatin Patel's website whose title Sutra in ancient Sanskrit translates as "a thread or line that holds elements together".

Yatin Patel is an Orlando-based photographer, internet entrepreneur and native of India, and his "Sutra" project consists of images of Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat. The project uses high dynamic range (HDR) imaging, which gives photographs a distinct artistic feel.

As explained in Yatin's Wikipedia entry, he chose Ahmedabad as subject because it's a partitioned city, with ancient gated communities, small enclaves of different cultures, and lots of hidden courtyards.

Some of the "Sutra" series of prints have been printed on Japanese kozo (rice) paper, and the process is explained in a number of posts on Yatin's blog. The combination of monochrome HDR imaging and rice paper is an interesting one; the photographic style is certainly one of street photography, processed with HDR techniques and then printed on a textured medium.

The choice of Ahmedabad is an excellent one. Founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah, its architecture is a fusion of Hindu craftsmanship with Islamic architecture. I would think that Yatin will eventually do the same in Varanasi and Old Delhi, to name but two similarly compelling cities.

My thanks to Ron Mayhew, an accomplished photographer himself, who suggested Sutra to me.

Books: Holy War

This is the kind of book that makes my pulse quicken.  It's about the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama who sailed from Lisbon in 1497 to lead an expedition to find a new route to India. I haven't read it yet, but will certainly do so before I set for my own expedition The Oracles of Kerala Photo Expedition/Workshop™ scheduled for March 2012.

There's a review of the book on The New York Times' Sunday Book Review, from which I quote this (and you'll understand why my pulse quickened):

As Cliff recounts, the “landing party had assumed that Hindu temples were Christian churches, they had misconstrued the Brahmins’ invocation of a local deity as veneration of the Virgin Mary and they had decided the Hindu figures on the temple walls were outlandish Christian saints.” True, “the temples were also crammed with animal gods and sacred phalluses,” but these surely reflected exotic local Christian practices. What mattered to the Portuguese was that these long-lost Indian Christians permitted images in their “churches.” Thus, whatever their idiosyncrasies, they could not be Muslims. The Portuguese joined in the chants and invocations with gusto. When the Hindu priests chanted “Krishna,” the Portuguese heard it as “Christ.”

As one of the underlying objectives of The Oracles of Kerala Photo Expedition/Workshop™, like some of my previous photo expeditions in India, is the visual documentation of its syncretic religious traditions, the publication of this book seems have been timed perfectly.

I will share my views as soon as I read it!!

Los Angeles Times; Mature Burlesque

Photo © Mel Melcon-All Rights Reserved

In order to break from the gloom of September 11 and its coverage, I thought I'd feature something both different and uplifting. From The Los Angeles Times, this audio slideshow seems perfect to do just that...it's about Monday Night Tease, which is the longest-running weekly burlesque show in Los Angeles. It's known as a venue for dancers of all shapes and shades, as well as for its cheeky humor.

The audio slideshow features Lili VonSchtupp, who draws crowds to bar in Hollywood every week to celebrate real women with real bodies. "One of the troupes taking the stage just before midnight at VonSchtupp’s weekly Monday Night Tease calls itself the Rubenesque Burlesque. For four minutes, the women shake, bounce and bump to a hip-hop song, eventually stripping down to black leather bras. When those come off, the crowd at Three Clubs erupts. They hoot approvingly at these dancers, each of whom weighs over 200 pounds."

According to Wikipedia, American burlesque shows were originally an offshoot of Victorian burlesque in Britain, and when those went out of favor at the end of the 19th centruy, the American style of burlesque flourished, but with increasing focus on female nudity. 

September 11, 2001: The Fringe

All Photos © 2011 Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

For those who have no press passes, access to Ground Zero was prohibited yesterday. Nonetheless, the areas around it did provide opportunities for good street photography.  Naturally, any event of such a magnitude brings along the fringe...the conspiracy theorists,  the government haters, the religious minded...and the Obama supporters.

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